Seventy nine years on from D Day, the day when the Allies started to turn things around and take the fight to the Nazis by landing on the Normandy coast, is a time of remembrance. We remember the thousands of young men from the UK, America, Canada and other nations including those from Britain’s dominions overseas, who disembarked under heavy German gunfire onto the Normandy beaches and laid down their lives, their bodies and, for some, their sanity, for generations yet unborn.

D Day was the moment the war changed. Although Germany was not doing as well as they had originally hoped to be doing in this war, the planting of Allied boots on northern European land was the point when the German’s went from little hope of victory or at least national survival, to no hope at all.

The young men who clambered, fearful and seasick, from landing craft thrust up on to the Normandy beaches, bought the rest of us, even those of us born long after World War II, our futures. Their sacrifice, their achievements ensured that Western Europe was no longer run by a German madman and gave those who came after them a chance to live, love, create and prosper.

We must remember them and it would be a sin to forget.